Sirius Knotts & Thoughts

At the first of this month, we “celebrated” the 150th anniversary of [the lie called] naturalism’s biggest hero. Nevermind that there aren’t enough fingers in the world to fill in the cracksof Darwin’s Dyke. They carefully preserve a dead theory and constantly revise it because it’s the best and only crack they have at denying God’s existence.

But God exists whether they like it or not.

When someone finally reminded me of this deplorable anniversary, I glanced at my personal library and took down my dog-eared copy of Origins. I needed a good laugh. But I could not bring myself to laugh, despite the fact that all he ever offers is speculation and the excuse that with oour present level of knowledge we couldn’t dogmatically rule him out. Thomas Jefferson’s comments to Charles Thompson [1787] may as well have applied to Darwin: “The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees, in every object, only the traits which favor that theory.” We call this ostriology - putting you r head firmly in the sand of dogma and ignoring all data which challenges it. Darwin’s faith and zeal for his theory have been matched by his disciples. And now our children are indoctrinated in this metaphysical nonsense as if it were empirical truth!

I put it back on its accustomed place on the shelf, filed appropriately under science fiction next to Wells, Verne and others. I was then reminded, by this decision, that we celebrate a different anniversary in a few days: Indepence Day. At that thought, I smiled again. For independence is the foundation of the USAmerican outlook. We value individualism, patriotism and especially freedom. Our Bill of Rights outlines some of the most precious freedoms we cherish: of religion, speech, assembly, the press. All of these reflect our value of the freedom to think for ourselves.

Some of us have. I did. I became an independent thinker, not because of the academic dogma I was offered, but because I looked at it critically and made up my own mind about it. Like Mark Twain said, I have never let schooling intgerfere with my education.

So this Independence Day, celebrate your freedom to think for yourself.

To put it another way:

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY! HAVE AN INDEPENDENT THOUGHT!!!

–Sirius Knott

The Mothman of Point[less] Pleasant, West Virginia, is sort of a weird cousin of mine. That is, one legend has it that the Mothman was spawned by the curse that Chief Cornstalk placed upon Point Pleasant as the white men he was trying to save betrayed and then murdered him [and his son]. And I’m distantly related to Chief Cornstalk, so there you go.

Now, a lot of misinformation has spread about what really occurred, thanks in no small part to a horribly inaccurate movie called The Mothman Prophecies [2002] starring [ech!] Richard friggin Gere. The movie was based on an equally preposterous book [1976] of the same title by author, parapscychologist, Fortean nutjob and all around opportunist John Keel. Keel wove a tale of outsider forces trying to warn a small West Virginia town of impending disaster, because, ya know, those alien outsider minds care about small hick towns, y’all. 

The facts of the case, in brief, are thus:

On November 15, 1966, two young couples went to the TNT area of Point Pleasant [a common haunt for young drinkers], saw something and got spooked. They described the creature as the size of a man, with huge red eyes and wings folded against its back. Despite fleeing at about 100 miles per hour in a sheer panic, they say that the creature was able to pursue them. They reported the details of the incident to the authorities. The Mothman [originally called the "Big Bird"] was sighted off and on over the next 13 months, ending with the collapse of the Silver Bridge. In the meantime, it was given media attention and attracted the likes of UFOlogist Gray Barker [responsible for the Men in Black concept] and aforementioned Fortean imagineer John Alva Keel.

Conservative theories have suggested that it might have been a misidentified sandhill crane or an owl whose eyes were reflecting in the light of the moon, flashlights, headlights, et cetera. I lean toward the latter theory. The following explains why.

MothmanLives.com  [a true believer site] has this to say about eyewitness accounts of the creature:

Here is an eyewitness’ sketch of the creature.

 You’ll note that it looks a bit like a shadowy image of a big owl [perhaps a great horned owl] in a threat posture.

Given the fact that the incidents stopped when the tragedy of the December 15, 1967 Silver Bridge collapse occurred and hype gave way to horror, it seems safe to presume that the Mothman was born of mass hysteria driven by media attention. When a real horror reared its head, the citizens of Point Pleasant had no more stomache for fireside tales and other distractions. Reality steamrolled over their infatuation with fame and ghost tales.

Today it serves as a cautionary tale for cryptid hunters, though an imaginative statue of the creature and an annual Mothman Festival keep the legend alive. Most UFO enthusiasts try to link the Mothman with the Green Monster of Flatwoods, WV [an alleged alien encounter]. The festival is populated predominantly with occult and New Age supernaturalists, parapsychologists and UFO nuts.

Though legends of Bird Men abound, cryptozoologists might well keep in mind this farce in their investigations. When hysteria, bits of pocket fame and misidentified animals combine, false cryptids emerge.

–Sirius Knott

Now Bigfoot is just not something Christians usually tackle.

I recall reading an article in the Charleston Daily Mail, quoting a Bigfoot hunter prior to a big hunt staged in West Virginia:

“One man in Jackson County, he just kept telling me, “I’m a religious person. I just don’t believe in this stuff, but I’m telling you, I saw it.” I try to explain that it shouldn’t have any affect on their religion and these sorts of things, that it’s not something that’s out of this world. It’s an animal. It’s just a separate species and there’s no hocus pocus to it.”

I think those comments rather summarize the way most Christians feel about it. They don’t know what to think. They suspect that Bigfoot might turn out to be the missing link and they don’t want to consider evidence for evolution. Or they think of it in the same category as leprechauns, fairies and Cerberus. Some even suspect that they’re simply demonic.

But there are other possibilities.

Bigfoot is called many names the world over: Sasquatch, Yeren, Yeti… There have been sighting in almost every corner of the globe. They’re refered to as beasts, wildmen and giants. Most accounts note that they have reddish brown or black fur. They live in remote locations, far from man. They leave prints, but no carcasses. What is a Creationist to think?

There are several possibilities:

1. A species of relict or unknown primate. Gigantopithecus has been suggested by many. Christian novelist Frank Peretti explored this option in his fictional work, Monster. [Gripping. Read it if you get the chance.] So it’s possible that they are just some form of unidentified ape or orangutan.

And before we go ANY further, I think the Bluff creek film should be called the Bunk Creek film, for the record.

2. They could be wild men, but fully human. Neanderthal comes to mind. Neanderthal is usally pictured as a knuckle-dragging missing link, but even evolutionary scientists have recanted this and now admit that Neanderthal stood upright and was a man and no ape or missing link. In fact, Neanderthal was every bit as smart as we are, if their skull size is any indication.

I’m reminded of the biblical account of Jacob and Esau. Esau was described as a hairy man with red hair. It’s possible he was simply a hairy man. It’s also possible that he was ethnically a Neanderthal. erap your mind around this: If Neanderthal is fully human, given his specific bone characteristics, if he were alive today, we would simply think of him as a specific ethnic type, much as we readily recognize someone of Asian, African or Caucasian descent today. Now what if that ethnic type was also covered in red hair. It might be a bit of a stretch, except that some ethnicities are extremely hairy and others are nearly hairless. And some ethnicities [Irish for example] favor red or black hair [no, I'm not calling the Irish Neaderthals. I'm making a point about how hair color is an ethnic trait.]

Anyway, what if Esau was of Neanderthal ethnicity?

Consider also Enkidu of the Gilgamesh epic. A red-haired, hairy wild man. So wild that nature is not really afraid of him, until he spends time with other men [specifically a woman] and growing wise, the animals begin to fear him. In time, he grows more and more learned in the ways of men. The Creationist theory, if we were assuming the Neaderthalid scenario, is that some of Noah’s children’s offspring degenerated into wild men. The Gilgamesh epic would then be an account of how one was redeemed from the wild and re-educated in the ways of his contemporaries. We have an analogous situation with Australian Aborigines, who have degenerated to a “primitive” state but nonetheless, as an ethnicity, still possess the intellectual potential to become college professors — and some have!

In any case, Esau’s children or kindred could be still further degenerated today and might avoid modern man for fear of him.

That’s one theory anyhow.

–Sirius Knott